Cart jumped into Gaven’s cell and shifted the rubble around the cowering prisoner. The warforged moved the heavy stones with ease, metal cords and leather sinews shifting and pulsing beneath his armor plates as he worked.
Above Darraun, Vaskar circled through the sky, making short work of the manticore guardians as they swooped and dived around the dragon. Some fell victim to great blasts of lightning from his mouth, others he tore with his teeth and claws. One he slammed with his tail so hard that the beast crashed into the side of the watchtower. The three wyverns perched on the roof around Vaskar’s hole watched the aerial battle with interest, as if they longed to join in, but they were well trained and wouldn’t abandon their riders. They shifted their weight restlessly on their two clawed feet, flexed their leathery wings, and slowly pulsed the stingers on their tails, arched up over their backs like scorpions.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan.
Darraun jumped down into Gaven’s cell. Huddled on the floor, Gaven looked up at the warforged, his eyes wide. Darraun remembered that the first warforged had been created only thirty-four years ago, and Gaven had been in Dreadhold for the last twenty-six. Had Gaven seen warforged during his imprisonment? Darraun somehow doubted that many warforged ended up in Dreadhold. So many people considered them less than human. It was hard to imagine that anyone would think a warforged criminal of any kind was too important to execute.
Darraun moved to the door and rested a hand on the cold iron. He closed his eyes in concentration, sensing and visualizing the magic that flowed through it, keeping it securely locked. He slid his hand slowly up, then down, looking for just the right place.
“Don’t you want to be rescued?” Cart rumbled behind him, extending a three-fingered hand down to Gaven. “We’re friends. We want to take you out of here.”
Darraun smiled at the way the warforged mimicked the voice of a child coaxing a nervous or reluctant pet. Cart had made a serious study of human behavior, considering that he had spent most of his short existence as a soldier.
Darraun found what he was looking for-a knot of magic that would respond to the properly enchanted key. It was a simple matter to tangle that knot further, break some connections, cross some lines. It would take time to sort that out and get the door open, and by that time Gaven would be long gone.
Haldren’s head appeared in the crack above him-Senya had evidently succeeded in getting him out. He was an old man, Darraun saw, his hair almost completely white, only a few streaks of coppery red suggesting what he’d looked like in his younger days. His skin had the pallor of prison, his hair was wild and his beard unruly, and his lips were cracked and dry. He still had his presence, though. As soon as he extracted himself from his cell he took command of the operation.
“Darraun,” he barked,” help the warforged get our prophet out of there. We don’t have much time.”
We have time, Darraun thought, but he followed his orders.
Gaven had taken Cart’s hand, but he still stared warily at the warforged. He seemed vaguely pathetic. He was a half-elf, so he didn’t look old despite his sixty-odd years. His long hair was wild but still black as night, and he had no beard. He was still well muscled, his chest and arms displaying the strength that had been nearly legendary in his time. His dragonmark stretched across the skin of his neck and upper chest before disappearing beneath his threadbare shirt.
“Gaven,” Darraun said, moving to stand beside him, “the guards will be here any moment. We have wyverns on the roof, ready to carry you away. You’ll be safe with us.”
Mumbling incoherently, Gaven tore his gaze from the warforged and shuffled forward. Too slow-Darraun could hear the guards shouting in the hall beyond the heavy iron door. He met Cart’s eyes and nodded. The warforged stooped over, put one arm around Gaven’s legs, and lifted the prisoner to his shoulder. Gaven went limp, without a sound of protest or a struggle. Perching on the fallen stone slab, Cart clambered out of the cell and onto the roof.
Above him, Darraun heard Haldren’s voice. “You see, Gaven,” he said, “I told you he would come for us. Behold the Storm Dragon!”
If Gaven made any response, Darraun couldn’t hear it. He looked around the shambles of the cell. Writing was scratched into almost every possible surface. He picked up a shard of stone at random from the wreckage strewn across the floor and turned it over in his hands, straining to read the faint, tiny scratches on what had been part of Gaven’s cell wall.
… recapitulates the serpents’ sacrifice, binding the servant anew so the master cannot break free.
Darraun raised one thin eyebrow and shoved the masonry shard into a pocket of his leather coat.
“Darraun!” Haldren roared above him. “We fly!”
As he scrambled back up onto the roof, Darraun heard shouts through the door. The guards had come and found their own door locked to them. He smiled, but he also slid a wand from his coat pocket as he vaulted into the saddle of his wyvern, eyeing the crack leading into Haldren’s cell. Vaskar had already taken to the air with Haldren on his back, and Senya’s wyvern lifted off behind it. Cart had put Gaven on his own mount, and the man’s arms were wrapped around the thick chest of the warforged.
As Cart’s wyvern lifted into the air, Darraun heard Gaven mutter, “… its moon shines full in the night.” Then Darraun followed.
Gaven looked down in front of the wyvern’s strong wings, and a thrill went down his spine. Below them, the Lhazaar Sea churned violently as dark clouds and gusting winds rolled in across the eastern ocean. Gaven clung tighter to the adamantine-plated body of the warforged, who had introduced himself as Cart, back in the cell. He forced his attention off the ocean below and onto Cart. He had seen warforged before, but only from a distance. The plates looked like heavy armor. Subtle engraving decorated the edges, but Gaven could tell from the way the plates moved along with the slightest shift in Cart’s body that they were attached, somehow, to the body underneath, which seemed to be made of wood, fibrous bundles, perhaps some stone, and other kinds of metal. The strangest thing, to Gaven’s mind, was that Cart was undeniably alive, not like some automaton made for the battlefield. He saw cords and bundles pulsing between the plates, and the warforged moved constantly just like a living person-the smallest shifts of posture, turns of his head, fidgets. Gaven had the clear sense that a sword cut would make Cart bleed, and a blow to just the right place could stop that ceaseless motion forever.
He turned his head to get a better look at the dragon. The Storm Dragon, Haldren had said. “The Storm Dragon emerges after twice thirteen years,” Gaven whispered. “Where did you come from, Storm Dragon? You plan to walk in the paths? It’s a long road ahead of you.”
The warforged turned his head, trying to see Gaven over his shoulder or perhaps hear his mutterings better. Gaven closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. He felt the warforged shift, turning back to watch where he was flying.
Falling-
Gaven started awake, still safe in the saddle though his arms had slipped from the warforged’s chest. He blinked, trying to clear his mind from his nightmare-a strange light spilling up out of the earth, gleaming on bronze scales.